2016-05-27 8:16 GMT+02:00 Michael Hendry <hendry.mich...@gmail.com>: > >> On 27 May 2016, at 00:53, Wols Lists <antli...@youngman.org.uk> wrote: >> >> On 26/05/16 10:43, Olivier Biot wrote: >>> >>> >>> On Thursday, 26 May 2016, Michael Hendry <hendry.mich...@gmail.com >>> <mailto:hendry.mich...@gmail.com>> wrote: >>> >>> I seem to have struck an interesting chord, here! >>> >>> >>> Definitely! >>> >>> >>> Another phenomenon about which I have doubts involves people who >>> claim that when they hear music in “sharp” keys (e.g. G, D, A, E) >>> their experience is of brightness, while the flat keys make for a >>> more sombre sound. I’ve even heard in a radio interview that this >>> applies to F# and Gb (the one bright, the other dull). >>> >>> >>> I experience the same from a string player's perspective. But in my >>> humble opinion it is a combination of 2 factors. One depends on >>> harmonics induced in the instrument played, the other is a more >>> subjective element: often 'sharper' keys tend to play music at a higher >>> pitch too, which results to brightening of the music played. Maybe >>> because a lot of written music wanders around the natural scale of the >>> clef, which goes up 1 full tone per 2 extra sharps (circle of fifths). >> >> Don't forget, G# and Fb are NOT the same note. > > This is where my lack of formal musical education shows me up - I’m a > self-taught amateur guitarist. F# and Gb look and sound the same on the > guitar (and on the piano), but it seems that this is because these > instruments have been constructed to sound equally bad in all keys.
Well, if you play first string, second fret without any context, nobody can say whether it's a F# or Gb. Though, try out to play the attached. For me F# and Gb feels completely different, _because of the context_. I'd always name them as written, i.e. F# in the first Gb in the second example. In general, it's not only the actual tune of an instrument, but our brain _interprets_ what it gets, depending on the context, which includes the (musical) culture we're grown up/educated in. > Other instruments are constructed and tuned so as to sound good in certain > keys and not so good in others, so it’s feasible that an orchestra could > sound better playing in sharp keys. > > Other mysteries (to me!) may also be explained in a similar way: > > Why aren’t trumpets and clarinets made a bit shorter, so that they don’t have > to have transposed parts? > > Why is the G string on my guitar the one I most commonly check because > although it sounds perfectly in tune in the context of a G major chord, it > can sound out of tune in other contexts? Well, if you tuned a perfect octave: G on 6th string, open 3rd string. It will be nice for g-major, but not in say e-major. Hence, I'm used to take slightly different tunings depending on the key of the piece I'm going to play. Ofcourse one has to say the range of keys used for classical guitar-music is very limited. des-major is a _very_ rare exception. Additional the 3rd string of the guitar is problematic because of the used material in relation to its thickness. There are a lot of attempts to deal with it by the guitar-constructors. Cheers, Harm
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